Amongst the authors which I have discovered in the past couple of years, the pair of Ilona Andrews has rapidly become one of my favorite ones. Their Kate Daniels series is one of the best ones in the urban fantasy sub-genre and it is has gone from strength to strength, with each release surpassing the high of the previous one. Earlier this year in a blog post I had detailed as to how there was a small alteration to their current release schedule with the addition of a new book which would feature a side character. The details of that post can be read over here, also newer details have arisen including the title of the new book which is Gunmetal Magic.

A few months later there was another tweak to that new schedule due to personal reasons and the details can be read over here. However in the first post there was a big announcement that that the authors would be providing “extra content” to help alleviate the extended wait for the forthcoming releases. The plan was to release a Kate & Curran novella during the holiday season, for which the blurb is given below:

Sometimes even the Beast Lord and the Consort have to take a break from protecting the Pack. Sometimes they just want to have a nice quiet dinner out in town. And then a necromancer at the nearby table dies, the lose vampires come flying through the glass windows, and before you know it the walls of the restaurant are redecorated in a lovely shade of red. What seems at first to be an unfortunate accident turns into a slow murder of a child. Now Kate and Curran must follow the clues to stop an ancient power intent on revenge. To succeed, they must bargain with Vikings, face horrifying undead, and hardest of all, work with each other!

The events of this novella occur simultaneously with those of Gunmetal Magic (Andrea Nash novel) and it is currently being offered free by the authors, which shows how tremendously they appreciate their fans and readership! The novella will be free to download in a variety of formats until the 6th of January 2012. Thereafter it won't be available as it's set to be released along with the print copy of Gunmetal Magic as bonus content. This will be helpful for those readers who love to have print copies. So go to the author blog to get your hands on this wonderful holiday present. I know I did and since I finished reading it over the weekend, I can safely say that the novella is another sterling addition to the wonderfully addictive universe of Kate Daniels.